Living the Life of an Artist are thoughts and life happenings that surround me as continual questions, self-doubt, and distractions (okay and perhaps down right laziness) get in the way of being creative.
I want to explore this aspect of being creative. What happens when life gets in the way? How do we move past the self doubt?

Saturday, March 27, 2010

PHOTOGRAPHS IN BLACK AND WHITE

The Hillsborough Area Artisans are hosting a black and white show/contest within the group whose work will be on display at the Gallery at Well Sweep in June. I offered to take pictures of some art work. Janett creates unusual designs in fiber art and she crocheted a beautiful black shawl with white trim and flowers. However, when I downloaded the pictures onto my computer, I found the white flowers came out without any detail.

This reminded me that I have trouble with any pictures of white flowers. Lilies of the valley and the double white lilacs in my yard are not shown in my albums because I am not happy with any photo that I take of them. The pictures end up looking overexposed.

With the purchase of a new computer, my old editing program would not work with Windows 7 and in my research, I found a better one and it was free. PhotoScape. This is a great program and it’s easy to use. One of my favorite features is the back light button and I thought this might be the answer to my white flower problem. It’s not. Back lighting causes the white to turn yellow or brown-ish and adjusting light and contrast further removes detail.

I don’t use an external flash. I seldom use the built-in flash as I try to keep things in natural light and even when I plan a shoot, I still operate on an in-the-moment mode. Most of the time, this works and I am pleased with the results. However, this photographing of white objects is a concern. Perhaps it’s the case of using an external flash—I don’t know.

Any suggestions to photographing white flowers will be appreciated. Thank-you.